Numerous vending machines exist for selling or vending diverse products through an automated, or ‘self-service’ format. Vending reached popularity in the late 1800's with coin-operated devices dispensing diverse merchandise. More recently vending machines have evolved to include robotic dispensing components, and/or PCs and virtual interfaces. These new vending platforms have emerged in the marketplace under the descriptions such as “automated retail,” “interactive retail,”and/or “interactive retail displays.” Such vending machines may be deployed within a variety of commercial or public settings.
In the vending arts, machines historically have a similar design and orientation that make it difficult or impossible to change machine sizes and configurations, inventory storage sizes and product form factors without rebuilding or redesigning the machine, or components contained therein. Typically machines are “one size fits all” or are customized for a fixed set of product sizes and dimensions. In other words, they are designed to a limiting group of specifications and lack the flexibility and re-configurability to accommodate drastic changes in inventory form factors, or a wide universe of products including very small thin items, or items with variable surfaces (protruding, bulging zones, irregular forms) without secondary packaging.
There are some models of traditional vending machines that have some flexibility to support the changing of inventory to different sized items, but they have limits when it comes to non-square or non-rectangle products, thin products or those that are much greater in one size dimension versus the others. In addition these predecessor systems generally allow objects to be dispensed in only 1-2 orientations (right side up, or upside down) limiting the capability to stock inventory and inventory shelves with maximum efficiency.
It is thus desirable to provide a method and mechanism that enables a wide range of inventory to be dispensed to a user with a common end dispensing system. It is also desirable to be able to reconfigure these inventory and storage components in the field in a short period of time limiting machine downtime.